Child marriage and drugs robbing East, NE of vigour: Justice Kant | India News

NEW DELHI: Justice Surya Kant, who will take over as CJI next month, on Saturday said that while eastern and north-eastern India are rich in diversity and potential, the young generation there faces grave challenges such as child marriage, narcotic substance abuse, and marginalisation of tribals and tea garden workers.Inaugurating the National Legal Services Authority’s East-Zone Regional Conference in Guwahati, Nalsa executive chairman Justice Surya Kant said, “Child marriage, though declining, continues to rob countless young girls of their childhood. Bihar still reports nearly 40% of women between 20 and 24 as married before 18, with Jharkhand and Assam not very far behind. The law may prohibit it, but social norms and poverty sustain it.“He said narcotics and psychotropic substances are “hollowing out communities,” noting that Assam has seen a six-fold rise in NDPS cases in just four years. “The trade flows across porous borders, destabilising states and entrapping a generation in despair,” he said, adding that tribal communities, long guardians of ancient wisdom and ecological balance, continue to face displacement.Highlighting the plight of tea garden workers, Justice Kant said five million of them across Assam and Bengal still struggle with poor wages, inadequate housing, unsafe maternity care and alarming levels of anaemia among women and children. “These are the challenges before Nalsa,” Justice Kant said.He added that the true measure of the conference “will lie not in the quality of discussions but in how it translates on the ground – a child in Bihar saved from a premature marriage, a young man in Nagaland finding a path away from addiction, a tribal family in Odisha securing its forest rights, a tea worker in Assam seeing her children educated and nourished, or a family in Manipur getting timely mental health support. The solution is to think regionally but act locally.“Praising the Northeast’s natural beauty, biodiversity and cultural richness, Justice Kant said, “It remains the cultural heartbeat of India. Yet, stark vulnerabilities persist, as development indicators reveal troubling disparities.”